Ode to my Awesome Handyman Husband

One of Kevin's favorite things to say when we watch DIY shows is, "I could SO do that."  And he when he has time, he can. Two of my favorite things in our house are things we made all on our own.  The first is our breakfast nook bench. I thought I'd blogged about it before, but apparently not.  It was a family project where Kevin did most of the hard work and the kids and I just did the painting/cushion making, but I think it's pretty sweet...

And the second thing...

When we were building our house, Kevin and I had a very similar idea in our heads as far as what we wanted the decor to be.  We both liked the whole rustic, living-by-a-lake, animals on the wall (okay, THAT was his dream...I just decorate around it...), cabin-ish feel.  Our living room focal point is definitely our fireplace, and I remember the day we walked in after the stone masons had finished it.  We instantly loved it.  One feature our builder improvised was the mantle...we originally hoped to put a solid cedar log up, but it wasn't in our budget, so instead our builder had the stone mason's fashion one out of rock.  Again, our first opinion of it was that it would be perfect.

But here's the thing about rough-hewn stone mantles:  There's not one single level spot on it. Not one.  I made the best of it for a few years, but it was a whipping trying to figure out what would sit up there without looking lopsided or crooked. One day I was staring at it in frustration, when an idea began to develop.  My awesome handyman husband could build a box to go around the stone!  It could be rustic and cool and LEVEL. I presented the idea to Kevin, and he kinda stood there awhile and finally said, "But I LIKE our mantle!"  After I presented (pleaded?) my case to him, he saw the logic in what I was saying. So for Christmas two years ago, he started working on my new mantle.

But.

Turns out the mantle wasn't the only problem with the fireplace...mainly the fireplace itself.  Long story short, it simply wasn't safe or energy efficient.  We had no idea that this was the case until we had a company in Tyler come in to replace our ghetto gas logs with pretty ones. That's when they told us that we were lucky our house hadn't burned down.  All of the sudden the mantle was the least of our worries.

So.  Fast forward a year. We hired a friend/reputable contractor to help us with the fireplace issue.  We put in a new firebox that would make burning gas logs safe and much more energy efficient.  To do that, we had to tear out some of our rock, but it was totally worth it. Last year we had a beautiful fire in the fireplace and no cold air blowing down on us.

Which brought us back to the whole stone mantle issue.  Now, full disclosure would require me to tell you that the fireplace guys told us that a wooden mantle would be a fire hazard, because it would be too close to the actual fire. But here's my logic: We never ever burn our fire unless we are awake and in the living room.  So I started casually hinting to Kevin that I would love to have a mantle...and with a little teamwork (he built, the kids and I sanded and stained.) this was the result:

(For whatever reason, this picture makes it look unlevel, but it's not.  I just checked. Weird.)

I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am with the end result.  It is exactly the mantle I had in my mind.  I think it is supercool and rustic and I LOVE the fact that we all put our mark on it (literally--in the distressing process, we all hammered, scratched, and beat the living daylights out of it!) And just a few days ago, I got to really decorate it for Fall for the first time ever....

Love it? I do!  Thanks honey!